We're all a product of our experiences. The more experiences, the harder the road was to get to where you are now, the more you have to draw on when it comes time to write. In my life I've been a police officer, armored car driver, and spent most of 20 years working as a private investigator in and around the artful ruin that is modern Detroit. I've had close family members murdered, invested decades into a marriage that went bad, raised kids that turned out great, got fired from jobs I desperately needed....and through it all I wrote. There were words in my head that I just needed to get onto paper, mostly fiction, but I never thought I could make any money at it. But life has a way of giving you what you need.
I now find myself in the slightly surreal position of writing for a living.
Right now non-fiction articles are my bread and butter, and I write regularly for outdoor magazines. That work put me in contact with Dillard Johnson, whose autobiography CARNIVORE I co-wrote. CARNIVORE was published in 2012 by Harper Collins and has done very well. However, there isn't anything in the world that I love doing more than writing fiction. My first published fiction novel, FAILURE DRILL, came out in 2004, and I have six more novels done, with more on the way. Keep up with me at OfficialJamesTarr dot com.